


i've got spots, i've got stripes too

by theragingstorm



Series: girls love girls and boys [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Green Arrow (Comics), Justice League - All Media Types, Justice League of America (Comics)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Coming Out, F/F, Family, Friendship, Humor, Love, Multi, Polyamory, Pre-Flashpoint (DCU), past Dinah/Oliver, superheroes are human disasters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 23:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16274717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theragingstorm/pseuds/theragingstorm
Summary: At a Justice League party, Dinah plans to break big news to her ex and his sidekicks.She does — just not in the way she planned.





	i've got spots, i've got stripes too

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Ani DiFranco’s “In or Out”

It started out looking rather like a Day-Glo fetish ball — in other words, just like a normal Justice League party.

The Watchtower was packed; everybody nibbling or sipping on something, their cowls and masks still firmly in place. Long tables had been set up, groaning with food, while the open bar in the corner was being solicited by Huntress, Flash, and the Hawks. Several people hung out by the great glass walls, gazing down at the Earth and the solar system beyond. Everyone else chatted and flirted, and though the party had only been going on for two hours, more than a couple of them were either tipsy or halfway to the Watchtower’s bedrooms. Or both.

There was only one real difference: that this time, current and former sidekicks were allowed to attend with their mentors. Specifically, Robin and Batgirl were there, as were Roy, Connor, and that new girl Mia. Which was what Dinah had been waiting for.

She took a breath, swirling the cherry around in her drink, craning her neck to see where her companion had gotten off to.

“Hey, pretty bird.”

She wheeled around.

Sure enough, Ollie stood before her, smiling. She could still hardly believe it, that he was alive again. Alive and as beautiful as ever.

“Ollie, hi.”

He moved in a little closer, and she peered over his shoulder.

“Have you seen Nightwing?”

The smile faded slightly.

“What do you want with him?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Bruce turning a not-so-subtle expression of disdain Oliver’s way. Tim, on the other side of the room, clung to Superboy’s and Wonder Girl’s sides. Cass couldn’t have enjoyed being surrounded by so many people, but she wasn’t showing it under her stitched-up mask — which was definitely a people-repellent anyway, even when she _wasn’t_ shoving it up to eat shrimp by the noisy handful.

“Nothing.” Dinah feigned disinterest. “I, uh, I see you brought the kids.”

Roy had walked over to the bar and was now laughing with Wally. Connor stood _very_ close to Kyle Rayner as they chatted. Mia, who knew almost nobody, fortunately didn’t look uncomfortable; she just loitered by the dessert table and filled her plate with mini-éclairs.

“Oh yeah. Roy’s not staying late though, he’s gotta relieve his babysitter by midnight.” Ollie cleared his throat. “But why are we talking about the kids? Let’s talk about you. I’ve heard all sorts of rumors of what you’ve been getting up to while I was gone...”

Dinah momentarily panicked, thinking he’d already figured it out. The she realized that his tone was too playful.

“A whole new superhero team? Of all beautiful women? Sure gives credence to the _other_ rumor: that Oracle’s not a computer program after all, but another man.” He cocked his head. “I don’t have competition from that other man, do I?”

“No Ollie.” Dinah took a long draught off her drink. “You definitely don’t have competition from any other man.”

Before he could flirt any more, another voice cut in.

“Dinah! Dinah, there you are!”

She could’ve kissed Dick as he emerged from the crowd, looking distinctly ruffled. She really could see why Barbara loved him; even if you didn’t know him, didn’t know what he was like at all, his looks alone were captivating. When he smiled, pleased to find her at last, he was particularly radiant.

“Oliver, can I steal her for a few minutes?”

“I guess so.” He didn’t look thrilled about it, and even less so when Dinah practically dove after the younger man, squeezing around their friends and compatriots, then let him lead her out of the main room and into the hallway.

Dick took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders.

“I can’t get the two families alone.”

“What?”

“For one thing, Bruce doesn’t want to be in a small room with Ollie, something about him being even more annoying than usual, even in the short time since he came back to life...oh, you know how petty he is. For another thing, I can’t pry Tim away from his friends, or Cass from the cocktail shrimp, especially after she found out how many things you can dip shrimp in. She dipped it in _white chocolate,_ Di, it was disgusting. The white chocolate fountain is permanently tainted.”

Dinah groaned and tilted her head back.

“Your family is a disaster. Please tell me I can at least tell Roy and Connor.”

“No, sorry. Roy’s trying to maximize the amount of fun he can squeeze into three hours, and Connor’s so busy gazing into Kyle’s eyes I’m fairly sure he didn’t even hear me.”

“Oh, typical Connor.” She squeezed her eyes shut, keeping them that way for a few seconds before she looked at Dick again. He sighed a bit.

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell them all together.”

“You’re the one who wants to just get it over with. And when else are we going to have so many of them in the same place again?”

“Hey, you got _way_ more upset than me at the idea of telling Oliver — no, no, you know what?” He held up his hands. “No, you’re right. But...maybe separate rooms for each family?”

“Fair enough.”

Dick nodded, made a motion like he was about to leave...then paused.

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have brought up the Ollie thing. Sorry.”

She shook her head at him fondly, folding her arms.

“C’mon kid, you don’t have to apologize. You do have to grab your dad, though.”

Dick drew back, then smiled again.

“I’m not that much younger than you.”

“You’re almost a whole decade younger than me. Compared to my usual men, you might as well be barely legal. Now go, move that cute tush.”

He jokingly saluted, then dashed off. In his wake, Dinah exhaled softly, leaning back against the wall.

Dick was a good guy, but he did have a tendency to bring things up that were easier shoved to the side. She was in love, she was very happily in love and things were well-arranged, but she had loved Oliver too once. And they had _not_ left their relationship in a good place when he’d died. Besides, would Roy and Connor see it like she was leaving them, like she wasn’t even giving Mia a chance?

She was so lost in thought that the beeping of her com completely shocked her. She fumbled with the device in her ear, accidentally double-clicking it instead of the single click required to put the call through.

“How’s it going?”

Barbara’s voice was her own, instead of the flat, metallic tone the voice modulator gave her. The tension faded out of Dinah’s shoulders just listening to her.

“Could be better,” she admitted. “We haven’t been able to tell them yet.”

Barbara hummed softly.

“Just get it done, and you’ll feel better,” she advised. “It’s better to get these things out in the open.”

“Oh, this coming from you?” Dinah teased. “Miss All-Knowing and Mysterious? ‘Ooh, I’m Oracle, and I must keep my identity secret, ooh, nobody knows who I am.’”

“As opposed to you, Miss I-Don’t-Even-Wear-A-Mask?” Barbara teased right back. Her tone was light.

“As opposed to me, honey.”

“Too bad, I like masks.”

“And ropes, I know. I’ve seen the chafe marks on Nightwing. And that he sits down _very_ gingerly after a night with you.”

“You want to be sitting down gingerly again too?”

“Oh, I’ll take you up on that sometime soon,” Dinah grinned. “In the meantime, you’d better come along with me, little candid camera. It might be a moment before I can round everyone up.”

“‘Candid camera’? That hadn’t better be a comment on those video files you had me save.”

“No regrets.” She blew an air kiss, then shook back her hair and strode back into the party.

It took her a moment to realize that it had gone completely silent...and that everyone was looking at her.

Some looked curious, like Diana. Some looked uncomfortable, like Tim. Some looked baffled, like Hal. Some looked like they were concluding something, like Ted. And some looked shocked, like Oliver and almost everyone else.

“What? Guys, what?”

Near the front, Clark coughed delicately, and cleared his throat.

“Dinah...” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You, um...I don’t think you meant to, but you...put your com on conference mode. Everybody heard you.”

It took a moment to sink in.

“Ohhhhhh my god.” She dropped her head back. “You guys were _not_ supposed to find out this way. Well. Fuck it. What I mean to say is —”

“Oracle’s a woman?” Hal blurted.

His response was supplemented by a chorus of murmurs. Almost everyone looked equally surprised by the prospect, except for Helena, Ted, Karen, and the Bats, for obvious reasons. And —

“Why is that surprising?” Diana asked. She folded her muscular arms across her chest. “Is it that you didn’t think a woman could be so intelligent and powerful?”

Several people looked equally embarrassed and terrified. Hal quickly tried to backtrack.

“No, no, no, Diana, no! It’s just that, y’know, at first we thought she was a program, but then we saw that she’s always surrounding herself with beautiful women, so, y’know, we thought that she was a he. Because doesn’t it make sense that it would be a man surrounding himself with beautiful women?”

Diana raised an eyebrow.

“Hal, you do realize who I am and where I lived for most of my life, right?”

“They clearly don’t call it Paradise Island for nothing,” Helena muttered, and Wally spewed his drink in Hawkman’s face.

“Wait, the Amazons are _actually_ lesbians?”

“I don’t know, maybe you should ask Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant.”

Ollie finally interrupted.

“I can’t believe this,” he exclaimed, pointing squarely at her, “after all the shit you gave _me,_ you’re sleeping with someone who already has a boyfriend?”

Dinah was only taken aback for a moment.

“She’s not cheating on him!” she yelled, not caring that everyone was looking at her again. “So _again,_ you can’t talk!”

“Here we go again,” Roy groaned.

“Oh, so she’s sleeping with you, but she’s not cheating on —”

Barbara cleared her throat, and the room fell silent again.

“If you will all give us a chance to explain...” Her voice practically rang through everyone’s coms. “Then we can stop bickering, and hurling accusations around.”

The Justice League was quiet in her wake. Not for the first time, Dinah marveled at Barbara’s ability to own a room, to have everyone listen to her — even in light of finding out a couple of her kinks.

Dick lifted a hand.

“Ba — Oracle and I have been dating for several months, and we’ve loved each other for some time before that,” he explained. “But a little while ago, she realized she had feelings for Dinah as well as me, and that Dinah had feelings for her too. So instead of picking between us, she chose to date both of us. At the same time.”

A few more moments of quiet passed.

Then Batman huffed a bit.

“Well. If that’s all.”

Dick stared at him.

“What do you mean ‘if that’s all’?”

“You were so nervous before coming here, I thought it would be something much worse,” Bruce said gruffly. “If this is what you want, if she’s really not hurting you...”

“Yeah, man,” Wally piped up, not seeming to notice Hawkman glaring at him, “as long as you’re happy.”

“As long as you all are,” Roy agreed. Donna, Garth, Connor, and Mia nodded. Cass beamed a white-chocolatey smile.

“Yeah, I didn’t need to know _some_ of those things...” Tim said, shuddering a little bit, “But the dating part, that’s okay.”

Nearly all of the rest of the League gradually began to murmur their assent.

Dick looked relieved enough to cry.

Dinah, for her part, sighed, feeling most of the weight dropping off her shoulders. She reached up and clicked the com back into one-on-one.

“Told you you just needed to get it over with.”

“Not quite how I was planning it, though.”

“Yes, I would’ve preferred to keep _some_ of those things from your coworkers.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad.” She surveyed the room, watching everyone turn back to talking amongst themselves. Diana threw her a quick smile. Dick stood beside Bruce, kneeling and saying something to his younger siblings, both of whom listened raptly. Bruce himself loomed and looked over them like a benevolent granite cliff.

“Hey.”

She turned and looked at Roy, Connor, and Mia, who’d all come over to her side. Roy rested his hand on her shoulder; they both relaxed.

Connor wasn’t quite as familiar, but he smiled friendlily. Mia tilted her head to the side.

“I didn’t know you were gay,” she said cautiously.

“I’m bi.” Dinah reached up and put a hand over Roy’s. “Don’t worry, it was already kind of an open secret. Now it’s just open.”

Mia nodded, then she smiled too.

“Admittedly I don’t know much about Oracle,” Connor said, “This is weird, most of us have no idea what she even looks like, and yet you’re dating her.”

“Oh, you’ve all seen her,” Dinah said casually. “Or at least, you’ve all seen pictures and videos of her in the archives...”

Connor and Mia looked even more puzzled. Roy raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t push it,” Barbara murmured in her ear.

“Obviously I can’t say who she is,” she added, “but believe me, she’s great. You can trust her.”

“We kinda have to, she has _everything_ on us.”

Barbara chuckled knowingly, and Dinah laughed too.

Over in the corner, Booster Gold was talking to Ted Kord a little too loudly.

“I knew it,” he was saying, “I knew all along that she was a person. _No_ computer program could get you _that_ hot.”

“Booster, I already told you when you thought she was a program, she and I are just friends.” Ted paused. “But also yes.”

Dinah laughed again, and the kids joined her.

When they quieted down, Connor looked serious again.

“Hey, um, I’m sorry things didn’t work out with you and my dad.”

All four of them looked over to where Ollie stood, flanked by several of the older Leaguers. He glanced back at her one more time, almost regretfully, before he turned back to his friends.

“It’s okay, Connor.” Dinah swallowed, and the lump in her throat finally disappeared. “I’m happy now. I just hope he will be too.”

Roy squeezed her shoulder.

“Well, we’re glad you’re happy.” He paused, then grinned. “Though not surprised. That woman must be really something, you should hear the way Nightwing talks. He’s crazy about her.”

“He can join the club.”

The kids eventually started chatting amongst themselves, and Dinah walked a few paces off. The party had gone back into full swing, and the air was light.

“You still listening, Babs?”

“Always.”

“I think I’m gonna take off early, catch a zeta tube back to Gotham. You’re not doing anything tonight, are you?”

“Mmm, not really.” She could practically hear the smile. “I’ll be here, waiting.”

“Can’t wait.” Dinah paused. “I love you.”

Barbara exhaled softly.

“I love you too.” Her voice was quiet, but warm.

Beaming, Dinah casually made her way across the room, saying goodbye to each of her friends in turn. Several of them hugged her. A couple just grinned knowingly.

It wasn’t until she was almost to the zeta tubes that she ran back into Dick.

“Lance.”

“Grayson. I’m off to bang your girlfriend. Don’t wait up.”

He laughed and held up his hands.

“I won’t stop you.”

She started to the exit.

“Oh, and Dinah?”

She looked back at him one more time.

“I’m glad about your family.”

Dinah nodded, feeling like she’d told Connor the truth. That it really was okay.

Because what they had, who they had, was more than enough to make them happy.

“You too, kid.”

She turned and finally disappeared into the tube, enveloped in the portal’s light.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven’t seen the SNL skit Helena mentioned, you really should:  
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cRZL70C0w


End file.
